Top Research Papers on Biofuels

The downstream microbial fermentation can be further engineered to not only increase the product yield but also expand the chemical space of biofuels through the rational design and fine-tuning of biosynthetic pathways toward the realization of "designer fuels" and diverse future applications.

There is currently no sustainable reliance on liquid fossil fuels worldwide, which ensures that future fiscal, environmental and social stability requires alternative renewable sources of liquid fuel. In order to satisfy the worldwide demand for liquid fuel, microalgae production is needed on a commodity scale; however, there are significant challenges in ensuring that production is economical and durable. This paper aims to examine microalgae' economic and cost advantages in greater depth and evaluate how vital biofuel policy support is for microalgae. A systematic analysis outlined the obsta...

Technoeconomic analysis serves as a useful method to screen potential research priorities, identify cost bottlenecks at the earliest stages of research, and provide the mass and energy data needed to conduct life-cycle environmental assessments.

Sorghum is an important crop that serve multiple purposes as human food, animal feed, and bioenergy production. There are opportunities to produce different types of biofuels from sorghum-based biomass. Sorghum with its vast genetic resources can serve as bioenergy crop and not compete against the value of it as food and nutritional security crop. Bioenegy crops provides an opportunity for agriculture to be part of solution for energy and mitigation to climate change. This review provides detailed overview and current knowledge on the conversion of sorghum biomass (stalks, leaves, and grains) ...

The aim of this paper is to review and analyse the latest available evidence to provide a greater clarity and understanding of the environmental impacts of different liquid biofuels and investigates the key methodological aspects and sources of uncertainty in the LCA ofBiofuels.

Globally, protecting the environment is one of the major concerns and there is a need for an hour to accomplish the same by dropping numerous harmful activities such as less dependence on fossil fuels and tailpipe emissions. Additionally, a huge investment made on waste disposal is particularly not economical; but recycling is from the viewpoint of producing energy from renewable resources. These further result in the development of society in an eco-friendly way. Exploiting biodegradable wastes like agricultural or forestry residues, a non-edible portion is value-added biological products (bi...

Engineering of metabolic pathways to produce advanced biofuels and approaches to reduce metabolite toxicity and cost and increase titre, rate and yield are discussed.

The fossil fuel issues due to toxic carbon dioxide emissions and climate change have a direct link with the particulate matter that has caused severe threat to the environment. The bio-based products such as biodiesel and bio-compressed natural gas (Bio-CNG) can be less expensive and adaptable. Biofuels are increasingly being used in transportation, heat, and power development requiring the need for renewable sources of energy. This review highlights the use of dreck organic matters from aquatic environment and soil supplies for renewable energy production for human requirements, sustaining a ...

This review will address advances in bioprocesses and challenges for cellulase production which have surfaced in the last decade and present those challenges and its probable solutions.

Continuous environmental degradation, volatility in the oil market, and unimpressive functioning of fossil-based (FB) fuels in compression ignition engines have expanded the tempo of the search for alternative fuels. Due to the astronomical rise in global population, improved agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing activities, enhanced farming and other food production and utilization ventures, agricultural waste generation, renewable fuel consumption, and emission of toxic gases. The need for cost-effective, readily available, and environmentally benign agricultural waste to biofuels has ...

Biofuel has emerged as an alternative source of energy to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and combat global warming. Biofuels are classified into first, second, third and fourth generations. Each of the biofuel generations aims to meet the global energy demand while minimizing environmental impacts. Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the current generations without jeopardizing the needs of future generations. The aim of sustainability is to ensure continuous growth of the economy while protecting the environment and societal needs. Thus, this paper ai...

The National Policy on Biofuels (NPB) 2018 was adopted on May 16, 2018 in India to augment the generation of biofuels and to build a sustainable biofuel ecosystem. The Biodiesel Blending programme (BBP) got affected due to lack of sufficient feedstock coupled with an 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) effective from July 1, 2017. The high GST resulted in the price of biodiesel being higher than that of conventional diesel thereby hindering the blending mandates. Most states in India do not allow free interstate movement of molasses resulting in artificially depressed prices besides derailing the...

A plethora of investigations regarding the emerging techniques for process improvement like integration methods, less energy-intensive distillation techniques, and bioengineering of microorganisms are discussed, which can assist in making biofuel-production in a real-world market more economically and environmentally viable.

The world energy production trumped by the exhaustive utilization of fossil fuels has highlighted the importance of searching for an alternative energy source that exhibits great potential. Ongoing efforts are being implemented to resolve the challenges regarding the preliminary processes before conversion to bioenergy such as pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and cultivation of biomass. Nanotechnology has the ability to overcome the challenges associated with these biomass sources through their distinctive active sites for various reactions and processes. In this review, the potential of nan...

The utilization of renewable fuel alternatives holds promise for reducing the financial burden of regulatory compliance and the social responsibility associated with greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is one of the most versatile technologies for converting renewable biomass feedstocks (especially in the wet state) into biofuel (biocrude oil) in a compact plant. Therefore, this review is devoted to thoroughly reviewing and critically discussing biocrude oil production from biomass feedstocks through the HTL process. This review starts by discussing the principles of biom...

The European transport sector was responsible for more than 25% of the EU total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2017. 53% of these emissions came from the passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles segments. Biofuels are seen as one of the options to limit these emissions in Europe. To understand the recent evolution of biofuels and their future, this review gives an overview on the production, use, legislation, and environmental impacts of biofuels in Europe for light-duty vehicles. In 2017, biofuels made up 4.5% of the energy consumption in the road transport and non-road mobile machiner...

The development of biofuel production from biomass has become a promising breakthrough and could tremendously enhance the potential of industrial technology. In this case, zeolites have emerged as suitable materials for catalyzing biomass conversion due to their outstanding catalytic properties, including the presence of the intrinsic acid sites, shape-selectivity properties, and high thermal stability. However, the sole micropores in zeolite cause diffusional limitation issues, especially for the bulky molecules involved in biomass feedstocks. For instance, many oxygenate molecules are too la...

This work presents co-cultivation of microalgae with other microbes, and it compares conventional processes with processes integrating auto-flocculation, in situ transesterification and excretion, as well as discussing the impact of processes based onmicroalgae using life cycle assessment.

Biofuels are sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels because of their renewable and low-cost raw materials, environmentally friendly conversion technologies and low emissions upon combustion. In addition, biofuels can also be upgraded to enhance their fuel properties for wide applicability in power infrastructures. Biofuels can be produced from a wide variety of biomasses through thermochemical and biological conversion processes. This article provides insights into the fundamental and applied concepts of thermochemical conversion methods such as torrefaction, pyrolysis, liquefaction, gasific...

The steady increase in human population and a rising standard of living heighten global demand for energy. Fossil fuels account for more than three-quarters of energy production, releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) that drive climate change effects as well as contributing to severe air pollution in many countries. Hence, drastic reduction of CO2 emissions, especially from fossil fuels, is essential to tackle anthropogenic climate change. To reduce CO2 emissions and to cope with the ever-growing demand for energy, it is essential to develop renewable energy sources, of which biof...